Twiistup. The name was synonymous both with small gatherings for the L.A. tech community and major party-mixers. But @TheMan, aka Francisco Dao, organizer of Twiistup, tried to change things for the event’s sixth go-around.

This time, attendees needed to shell out $300 to get into the event.

A competition was setup: 12 start-ups, known at Twiistup as “Showoffs,” went head-to-head with the best pitches in front of 6 judges who would decide who had the best pitch. The prize: some serious street-cred and Twiistup’s very own yellow Lego trophy.

Some of the Showoffs included: Bakespace, ExpenseBay, PeopleBrowsr, Blip.fm, and User Voice.

Following the pitches were several pro-panels, discussing everything from “Future Trends in Online Video” to “Music and Technology.” @Chamillionaire sat on the latter and received high twitter-praise for his expertise. @BrianSolis delivered a top-notch speech. Here’s one of my favorite lines from the PR 2.0 master: “We earn the attention, trust, and reputation we deserve.”

We cornered one of the show’s judges and one of ReadWriteWeb’s reporters for their take on Twiistup’s transformation.

Tubefilter’s very own Brady Brim-Deforest (disclaimer: I write for Tubefilter too) sat one of the seats of judgement.

“Having been a frequent attender of Twiistups in the past, I think it’s exciting to see the transformation of the event into something that really represents the LA technology, entertainment and media scene,” said Brim-Deforest.

Jolie O’Dell, writer for ReadWriteWeb, gave us her take as a Twiistup first-timer.

“I didn’t cover past Twiistups because they were parties. This is a really well-rounded conference…the panels have been amazing,” said O’Dell. “To have that much good-quality content in one day, it’s hard to absorb it all.”

That isn’t to say there wasn’t any partying. After the show ended at 5 p.m., the crowded came back in force for the evening, 80s-themed party. It cost $80 to get in, but there was an open bar, which saw a lot of use, God help the janitors. Microsoft set-up two Xbox 360s for some RockBand and Halo 3 action while showcasing their touchscreen-tech.

Girlgamer put together a bunch of old-school Ataris while the Showoffs showed-off their products to attendees. We’re pretty sure the tons of swag didn’t hurt either.
After the booze was gone and the last remnants of the party, cleaned-up, Twiistup 6 would aim to wow attendees again for its second and final day.